The Seventh Man, page 499 by Max Brand
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oin' out the back way," interpreted the sheriff, "but they'll come around in front. They ain't any other way they can get out of here. Pass that down the line, Mat."
Before the whisper had trailed out half its course, a woman screamed in the house. It sent a jag of lightning through the brain of Vic Gregg; he started up.
"Get down," commanded the sheriff 'curtly. "Or they'll plant you."
"For God's sake, Pete, he's killin' his wife--an'--he's gone mad--I seen it comin' in his eyes!"
"Shut up," muttered Glass, "an' listen."
A pulse of sound floated out to them, and stopped the breath of Gregg; it was a deep, stifled sobbing.
"She's begged him to stay with her; he's gone," said the sheriff. "Now it'll come quick."
But the sheriff was wrong. There was not a sound, not a sign of a rush.
Presently: "What sort of a lass is she, Gregg?"
"All yaller hair, Pete, and the softes' blue eyes you ever see."
The sheriff made no answer, but Vic saw the little bony hand tense about the barrel of the rifle. Still that utter quiet, with the pulse of the sobbing lying like a weight upon the air, and the horror of the waiting mounted and grew, like peak upon peak before the eyes of the climber.
"Watch for 'em sneakin' up on us through the rocks. Watch for 'em close, lads. It ain't goin' to be a rush."
Once more the sibilant murmur ran down the line, and the voice of Sliver Waldron brought it faintly to a period.
"Three of 'em," continued the sheriff, "and most likely they'll come at us three ways."
Through the shadow Vic watched the lips of Glass work and caught the end of his soft murmur to himself : ". . . . all three!"
He understood; the sheriff had offered up a deep prayer that all three might fall by his gun.
"Up from the farther end of the line the whisper ran lightly, swiftly, with a stammer of haste in it: "To the right!"
Ay, there to the right, gliding from the corner of the house, went a dark form, and then